We are only at the beginning, it is estimated that 99% of things in the world are still not connected. The social media revolution in a silo has come and passed.Using the lure of democratized information access andproduction, it has huddled the masses online; promising totalfreedom of expression, of the people, by the people for a new tomorrow. ‘Social’ did jump start the Internet of Things (IoT) and is now an integral enabler of our lives in both form and substance. The “internet of things”, the sweeping tech revolution we are living, is as scary to many as it is exciting to some. This revolution may even have in store,dreams come true. For baby boomers they are dreams from pasttimes, for the Gen X and Millenials amongst us they are only recounted. Either way they are dreams of power. The flowerpower kind; albeit an upgraded one. Take a read and let me know your thoughts.

1. The Internet of Things Picks Up
Where Woodstock Left Off
by Yacine Baroudi
The “internet of things”, the sweeping tech revolution we are living, is as scary to many
as it is exciting to some. This revolution may even have in store,
dreams come true. For baby boomers they are dreams from past
times, for the Gen X and Millenials amongst us they are only
recounted. Either way they are dreams of power. The flower
power kind; albeit an upgraded one.
In a post Occupy world, organizations everywhere should
contemplate the themes that flooded the undercurrent of one of
the greatest consumer uprisings in recent history — Brian Solis
The social media revolution in a silo has come and passed.
Using the lure of democratized information access and
production, it has huddled the masses online; promising total
freedom of expression, of the people, by the people for a new
tomorrow. ‘Social’ did jump start the Internet of Things (IoT)
and is now an integral enabler of our lives in both form and
substance.
Mobile connectivity, initiated the internet’s push back from
desks and couches into the wild. And the Internet of Things only accelerated its
expansion ever since: TVs, cars, homes and even glasses have been hooked back up to
the ‘almighty’ cloud. If those mundane objects can have a life, why not the billion others
in existence? Why couldn’t every existing thing be shrouded in a digital layer and,
virtually be made alive. What will those things tell us about our very selves and our
environment then? How could ‘listening’ to those things, make our lives better? Easier,
faster, maybe even fairer, healthier and richer.
“Everywhere we go in the world, the things that we come across aren’t intelligent. Like
this wall that I’m looking at, it’s just separating the room from the other side. In
actuality, that wall should be intelligent. The next 10 years [will be] nuts.”
— will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas , Intel’s Director of Creative Innovation
The digital shrouding of things is the revolution we are living. This, is the
new frontier to be conquered.

2. The Internet of Things Picks Up Where Woodstock Left Off — Yacine Baroudi
—2—
The Hippie movement peaked in an unsustainable haze of psychedelic rock,
sexual excesses and altered states of consciousness, on the backs of
cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms. It culminated, at a music festival
north of New York City, in a small country town called, Woodstock. But it
behooves us to note the similarities and the differences that might just
make the Internet of Things closer to fulfilling the similar promise of a new
world.
Our world is a reflection of ourselves, thus the revolution has long been
coming. Complete with dreams of change and power. What implications on
our desires, aspirations and ability to effect change on our world? To what
extent will dreams of a new world, be now enabled by technology?
“If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things —using
data they gathered without any help from us— we would be able to track and count
everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost.”
— Kevin Ashton , RFID father, coined the term “Internet of Things“
— Yesterday — Today — Tomorrow —
We are only at the beginning, it is estimated that 99% of things in the world are still not
connected. According to @CiscoSystems’ very own futurist, Dave Evans aka
@DaveTheFuturist, we’re now entering the
Internet of Everything (IoE) era. Cisco recently
estimated the impact of IoE at a very
respectable $14.4 Trillion .
In February, Le Web 2013 announced its
subject: “Digital Hippies: Create a New
Sharing Economy“. Le Web is a forward
looking, large tech conference taking place
every year in Europe.
The event’s organizers are usually right on the
money when it comes to foreseeing online and
digital trends. This time, it is touching on a
rather “soft” point, aiming at the substance of
the digital revolution, rather than its form.

3. The Internet of Things Picks Up Where Woodstock Left Off — Yacine Baroudi
—3—
Although this year’s subject wording is not fortuitous, Loic Lemeur aka @Loic and Le
Web’s founder, is quick to distance his organization from the flower power movement in
his video announcement. I’ll grant him that today’s undercurrent has considerably
evolved over the past 50 years.
— Yesterday —
The original flower power movement started in the 1950s, with
the beret-wearing beatniks hailing from New York and it
continued with the hippie movement in the mid-1960s. In the
very Mecca where the current digital revolution has its roots:
San Francisco, California.
The first known use of the word hippie was in 1965, according
to the Merriam Webster dictionary. The term is thought to
have originated from hip, which some attributed to hipi, a
word in the West African Wolof language meaning “to open
one’s eyes”.
In his 1964 autobiography, Malcolm X referred to the word
hippy as a term African Americans used to describe a specific
type of white man who “acted more Negro than Negroes“.
Harry Gibson, a boogie woogie virtuoso of the time who claims
to have first coined the word hipster, certainly fits that
description in this video .
Today’s geeks that fuel the construction of the Internet of
Things, can certainly be qualified as hipsters. Their eyes
opened, by the prospect of dust speck-sized sensors, to the possibilities of the new world
ahead. Where their ancestors, in internet-time terms, used conscience altering
substances to “open their eyes”; today’s hipsters are using technology to do the same,
making the ideal goal of a new way of life far more sustainable and reachable.
As a testimonial to these hipsters aspirations, suffice to look at a recent Accenture study
that shows men and women no longer defining career success by the amount of money
they make. Putting work-life balance — ahead of money, recognition and autonomy;
more than half of those surveyed report to have turned down a job offer because of the
possible effect on their work-life balance. This aspiration is certainly not new but now,
technology is enabling and empowering these hipsters to demand it as an element of a
better quality of life.

4. The Internet of Things Picks Up Where Woodstock Left Off — Yacine Baroudi
—4—
— Today —
In many aspects, today’s rekindled dreams of power, live in a world where karma fearing
and forward payments are ways of life. Anyone spending any amount of social time
online can attest to the ever-growing ‘karma religion’, illustrated by the
myriad motivational messages and quotes shared that run the range of corniest to most
inspirational. Conversations about positivity, the strive to help and the obligation to pay
it forward, seem more socially acceptable today. Conversations on the subjects abound,
in contexts as disparate as selling apps to building real estate businesses, to fighting
cancer, to getting rich, to saving the
world from climate change. Listen to
wine-loving-business-man-social-
media-celebrity-thank-you-saying-
advocate, Gary Vaynerchuk aka
@GaryVee.
Questions come up as to where this
undercurrent is stemming from: is it
that humans have a basic good nature
that has recently been enabled by
technology? Or it is the endemic
oxytocin addiction? More specifically:
1. Has all this need for positivity
always existed? If we believe the above good-natured assertion, probably to a
certain extent. Was it brought on by our recent superability to connect with each
other? Maybe it started with, and continues to feed
on, the surge in oxytocin brain levels brought on
by the use of social media. Oxytocin is a brain
chemical called cuddle hormone or trust
molecule, responsible for empathy. Will we all
progressively turn into oxytocin-addicts,
oblivious to the realities of our physical world?
Sort of like the 60s’ hippies were? Floating to the
demise of their ideal of love, equality and
acceptance, in a psychedelic haze of rock, sex and
drugs?
Or…
2. Are we slowly progressing towards a better functioning world enabled
by technology? A world pressured to change from all sides by the failures of its
fundamentals and the power of a Metcalfed technology. Failures pooled from the
depth of individual minds to the surfaces of the social web. A world with new
values and yardsticks, a world of de facto win-wins for starters. A world where
technology, the Digital Revolution and the Internet of Things and Everything, all

5. The Internet of Things Picks Up Where Woodstock Left Off — Yacine Baroudi
—5—
together expand the human brain abilities beyond its strictest primal needs,
enabling more productivity and effectiveness, new ways to pronounce judgments
and make decisions for a better quality of life.
— Tomorrow —
Time will tell. One thing is for sure: the internet of things is changing expectations and if
expectations change, behaviors will change as a result. Amy Cuddy, a social scientist, in
her recent TED talk demonstrates that expectations affect behaviors and behaviors
affect outcomes. She concludes to not mean “fake it until you
make it but until you become it“.
Our behaviors are, to a large extent, affected by what we
expect there to be in store as a result, thus affecting our
achievements in turn.
Thus if we agree that the desire to change one’s world is in
pent up demand, will pooling these expectations over the
billions of technology-enabled connections establishing
themselves everyday, be the world changing tipping force?
So far, Millenials’ concerns seem in line to somehow, affect
their environment on a deeper level. In 2007, cancer, animal rights and education were
their top causes. This year, education, ending poverty, and the environment are their
key concerns according to The Intelligence Group . Will their sustained digital activism
via a mobile device, from the comfort of distance from inconvenience, effect real
change? Or will their noise drown and weaken disparate actions, occurring over too long
of time periods? If we are to believe @DaveTheFuturist, the ubiquity of technology may
trump willpower and bridge that gap.
“They [Millennials] actualize their most important
values and stand behind them with every thing they
do to bring about change.”
— Altimeter Group’s Brian Solis aka @BrianSolis
in this Forbes article
Since human behavior always defaults to the least
amount of effort, expectations and thus behaviors
and achievements, will continue to shift; further compounded by the increasing
omnipresence of the Internet of Things.
Expectations will shift from searching for a product or service or even for an ideology or
a cause; to expecting to being somehow engaged about it, whenever the need arises or
behavior calls for it. As a result, it will be even less about which organization is the

6. The Internet of Things Picks Up Where Woodstock Left Off — Yacine Baroudi
—6—
loudest or even the most engaging. It will be about the one that’s smartest about
knowing its community, and maintaining in place the right triggers to activate the most
relevant engagement, at the most appropriate time. Picture the shift in business
behavior this will demand. Picture the need in listening and analytical power required.
Picture also the level of relevance the current way of doing business has.
To conclude and underscore the magnitude of change we are living; if two in
three Millennials believe a person on a computer spreading the word, can create
more change than a person on the street, rallying or protesting.
I wonder: what makes them so sure? Is that belief factual? Is it a some type of faith? In
what? Technology only? Or is it simply the oxytocin
addiction speaking?
I wonder: How will the omnipresence of a tech
shroud on all existing things, affect a population that
not only increasingly report not identifying with any
religion (Pew Research Center) but also
overwhelmingly believe, and across political party
lines, in themes eerily reminiscent of cliches from
the 1960s?
Will.i.am is probably right ‘ The next 10 years [will
be] nuts ‘.
To be continued…
Survey | A Generation in Transition: Religion, Values, and Politics among College-Age
Millennials — Public Religion Research Institute — Click for details.